Only a small handful of HD-DVDs have been released to date and it seems
there is a fairly wide range of picture quality in the available
titles.. Some of the films including “Apollo 13,” “GoodFellas” and
“Full Metal Jacket” have a grainy, washed out look, however most of the
films that have were filmed recently such as “Million Dollar Baby,”
“The Last Samurai” and “Doom” have spectacular picture quality.

“Training Day,” starring Denzel Washington (who won the Oscar for this)
and Ethan Hawke is one of those films that falls right in the middle in
terms of picture quality, having been created in 2001. The transfer to
HD DVD, when viewed in 1080i resolution on my Toshiba HD DVD player, is
very good however the colors are a tad muted, even on my ISF calibrated
JVC H-DILA monitor.

The film is an entertaining yet uneven foray into the world of corrupt
police in the urban jungle that is downtown Los Angeles. Denzel
Washington plays Alonzo Harris, a veteran cop who has been assigned the
job of training Jake Hoyt (Hawke), a bright-eyed, naïve police officer.
Hoyt had previously been stationed in the much safer San Fernando
Valley beat, and is abruptly thrown into the world of undercover
narcotics investigations. Washington owns the screen with an almost
over-the-top portrayal of a police officer gone bad who has spent so
much time crossing the line between good and bad that he has forgotten
what is right and what is wrong.

Although films like “Star Wars” and “Jurassic Park” are the kind of
movies that you think of when it comes to great home theater demos,
some of the scenes in this gritty drama are noteworthy demos as well.
Even the untrained eye can pick up the subtle nuances that set HD DVD
apart from 480p DVD. Most of the dialog in “Training Day” occurs in an
unmarked police cruiser and in one particular scene, the windows of the
car have water droplets on the window. The level of details on the rain
droplets on the window are shockingly resolute. As the setting sun
strikes the side of Denzel Washington’s face in chapter 8, you realize
how much of the picture you are actually seeing. Actors with rough
complexions, such as Edward James Olmos, are going to hate HD DVD.

What is amazing about this, as well as the rest of the first generation
of HD DVD discs is the fact that as good as many of them look,
“Training Day” included, we are really only seeing about half of the
possible resolution. The discs are mastered in 1080p however the
current batch of Toshiba HD DVD players that were first to market this
past month are only capable of playing up to 1080i/720p. Add to that
the fact that most TVs that are billed as “1080p” capable are not
really capable of accepting a true 1080p signal (they can accept an up
scaled one), and you can see that this technology is still in its
infancy and yet it still looks simply spectacular.

Watching Alonzo Harris spin his double sided tale of deception and lies
while still polishing up his badge every day, in hopes of one day
reveling in his police pension, one cant help but think of the gritty
police drama “The Shield.” Although Michael Chicklis’ character Vic
Mackey never takes any rookies out on the job, he lives a similar dual
life as the caring father of an autistic child who spends his day
walking the line between justice and corruption. Another film that
comes to mind is the gang drama “Colors.” The rookie cop played by Sean
Penn wants get out on the street and bust every crack head and
prostitute they can find. Veteran Robert Duvall lets a handful of low
level crack dealers go after catching them in a back alley after
getting some valuable information from them. The point being that you
have to let the little fish go so you can eventually catch the big
ones. The analogy that Harris uses when training Hoyt is that of sheep
and wolves. He says in a world of sheep, they are the wolves that have
to be wolves themselves to protect the innocent sheep.

Unfortunately there are some glaring holes in “Training Day” that make
it fall flat as a film. Award winning music video director Antoine
Fuqua forces the action in this film to unfold in the span of 24 hours
and it just seems highly implausible that a veteran police officer who
dabbles in money laundering, tampering with evidence and general
corruption would unveil all of this tricks to a rookie on the first day
of training. Harris convinces Hoyt that he has to be willing to do
drugs to show that he is willing to anything to stay alive on the
streets. Once loaded on drugs, Hoyt becomes putty in Harris’s hands and
a wild day of corrupt cop practices begins.

Fuqua uses his music industry power to get three of the biggest names
in hip hop and R&B for the film. Dr, Dre, Snoop Dog and Macy Gray
make appearances all with varying levels of success. Snoop is the most
believable as a drug dealer who has been confined to a wheel chair but
still slings dope on the streets and wears fly crushed velvet jump
suits. Dr. Dre plays a member of Harris’s strike team and his acting
chops are a little shaky but he doesn’t slow the film down too much
with his unsteady acting. Macy Gray plays the “ghetto fabulous”
girlfriend of a street thug named Sandman; her pink dress and long pink
fingernails are absolutely authentic and, according to the director
commentary, she threw herself into the role so much that she even
helped come up with the costume herself. Her music has a bit of a
street sensibility and her acting as the pissed-off woman who has had
the police barge into her home with a fake warrant too many times is
quite convincing. As she yells at the local neighborhood gang bangers
to shoot at Harris and Hoyt as they run back to their car, the sound
system finally comes alive. The Dolby Digital + 5.1 mix on “Training
Day” is mostly centered around the dialog but in the action shooting
scenes, the bullets fly with reckless abandon and envelop the viewer.

Late in the film, a huge plot twist happens that is such a incredible
coincidence that it jars you out of your seat and makes everything that
happens after it seems completely implausible. In the director
commentary, Fuqua addresses the fact that many people have commented on
this coincidence. He does not exactly do the most eloquent job of
explaining this scene, so it did nothing to convince me as to how this
scene could have happened other than by saying, coincidences happen
every day.

Frequently when a DVD includes bonus footage, deleted scenes or
alternate endings, the picture quality it not as good as that of the
film itself. This is because it is expensive to finish the film, adjust
the color timing, add Foley and to automatic dialog replacement. The
deleted scenes in “Training Day “ look decent; however, they are
presented in 480p on this disc and are much darker. Most of the deleted
scenes are Washington’s and Hawke’s characters running through the
daily paces of the job in their undercover car. Nothing that was cut
seems to be important to the plot but in one particularly disturbing
moment, Harris tells Hoyt a story about a man in the neighborhood who
raised Doberman pinschers. One day, the man waved nicely at an
African-American police officer while smacking the dog, chained up and
defenseless, violently with a newspaper. “He was teaching the dog to
hate niggers”. says Harris. “Just when you think you think you have
seen it all, these streets come back and remind you that you haven’t
seen anything.”

The DVD also includes music videos from Nelly and Pharoahe Monch as
well as the appropriately titled documentary “Crossing the line: The
Making of ‘Training Day.’” This documentary is one of those promo
pieces that HBO runs about a few weeks before a film hits the theaters;
although it is basically a praise fest for Denzel’s powerful acting,
gives us little real insight into what Alonzo’s real motivation for his
corrupt ways. In “The Shield,” we see Vic Mackey’s struggles with his
autistic children; his small paycheck isn’t enough to cover the bills
so he dips his hand into the cookie jar. We only get a 24 hour snapshot
into the life of Alonzo Harris so the best guess that we are left with
is that he simply thrives on the power and protection that he has with
the silver badge in his pocket.

Ultimately “Training Day” is a vehicle for a powerful actor to dominate
the screen as everyone does their best to stay out of the way. Plot
holes and uneven pacing aside, Denzel Washington absolutely owns the
screen. Presented in what is essentially the theatrical aspect ratio of
2.35:1 (although listed as 2.40:1 on the case), Washington’s Alonzo
Harris, with his black trench coat, silver chains and menacing goatee,
roars on the screen, owning every scene he is in, overshadowing a solid
performance by Ethan Hawke. Their dynamic on screen is terrific and for
the first half of the movie, is worth taking the ride with, even if
they payoff is not what one might hope for.